BILL AND JJ’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
ON OUR BALTIC CRUISE
20 MAY -7 JUNE, 2013
(CLICK THE THUMBNAIL PHOTOS FOR A LARGER IMAGE)
On Monday, 20 May we departed San Diego to Copenhagen, Denmark for our 11 day Baltic Cruise on the Emerald Princess. We had a full day (22 May) in Copenhagen for time lag adjustments and some sightseeing. Then on 23 May we meet with our friends from our hiking group, the San Diego WalkAbouts, and boarded the ship for our Baltic adventures. Don and Kathy had organized the whole thing for us and, as usual, did a great job. Thanks!!
The cruise started from Copenhagen on 23 May and returned in the morning of 3 June after completing a loop of 2821 miles and 8 port visits in 7 different Scandinavian and Russian countries. JJ and I stayed in Copenhagen until 7 June for more sightseeing.
22 MAY AND 3-6 JUNE, 2013 COPENHAGEN
We tried to check out as many of the Copenhagen tourist spots as possible. Our first day 22 May was pretty much rained out but the later days the weather was great with lots of daylight and mild temps of about 65-70 max. Here are some photos from in and around the city. These include the "hippy" community of Christiania (oops, I wasn't suppose to take photos) and the Tivoli Gardens amusement park and the Hans Christian Anderson statue.
24 MAY FRIDAY OSLO, NORWAY
We arrived Oslo at about 10am for our first port city visit. Our group had decided not to take any of the Princess shore excursions. Instead, we arranged our own tourist stuff with much guidance from Don and Kathy. Here we did a quick walking tour of the city hall area, the Cultural History Museum and, after some confusing bus connections, we made it out to the Vigeland Sculpture Park. These controversial sculptures by Gustav Vigeland depict the many stages and episodes of human life. The controversy has to do with the fact that all the statues are nude.
We also made a quick tour of the Fram Museum which houses the actual ship, Fram, specially built in 1892 to withstand the crushing force of the polar icecap. It was used in expeditions to the North and South Poles.
25 MAY SATURDAY AARHUS, DENMARK
After departing Oslo we cruised back south arriving at our next port around noon on Saturday. Here we did a tour of the Our Lady's church and a folk museum with lovely gardens and recreations of homes from different periods of Denmark's history. Finally, on the walk back to the ship JJ and I did a very hasty visit to the Aros Modern Art museum and its unique Rainbow Walk Way.
26 MAY SUNDAY WARNEMUNDE, GERMANY
The Emerald Princess arrived early at this coastal resort area of northern Germany. Princess Cruises was marketing a train trip down to Berlin and many passengers took this trip. We were not too interested in a 6 hour round trip to Berlin so we elected to do our own thing. Despite a very wet and rainy day we completed a train excursion from the nearby town of Rostock to the Schwerin Castle and returned in time for a fine sit down dinner for the nine of us and a pedicure for JJ.
27 MAY MONDAY AT SEA
This day was the first of two days on the cruise when we had nothing to do except hang out. This was just as well for me because I was the first of 4 of us to experience some digestive upsets but we all made quick recoveries.
28 MAY TUESDAY TALLINN, ESTONIA
Following an early arrival we soon met our tour guide, Mart, who spoke excellent English and provided us with a unique touring experience. This tour was about 40€ each. Estonia and Germany were the only "euro" currency countries on this trip.
Mart took us to the rural areas for a brief peek into the old Cold War era when Estonia was a part of the Soviet Union. Mart was proud to point out that Estonia had successfully defeated the new Soviet Union back in 1918. Their independence only lasted until 1940 when the Nazis took over and after WW2 the Soviets were in charge.
He showed us the remains of an old medium range nuclear missile (the R12) sight where the missile was hidden inside a tunnel and then would have been rolled out for use against European capital cities. Yikes!!
Also, in the town of Paldiski we stopped for lunch and all enjoyed a Russian soup, "seljanka"
At the end of the day we checked out the Alexander Nevsky church and the Parliament Building and then back to the ship by 4pm.
29 and 30 MAY WED-THURS ST PETERSBURG RUSSIA
We enjoyed our whirlwind 2 day tour with guide, Irina, from SBD tour company. The tour company handles the Russian visa requirements and Russia was the only country that required passports and visas for ship tourists.
Initially we took a Neva River boat tour to see some of the city's famous buildings from the water including the Hermitage and Peter and Paul fortress.
We learned that St Petersburg (aka Leningrad or Petrograd) is celebrating its 310th anniversary of founding in 1703 by Czar Peter the Great.
We then took a high speed hydrofoil along the river for about 18 miles to see Peter's summer palace, Peterhoff. Czar Peter was jealous of the French Versailles Palace so he made sure this one was just as big and luxurious. It was badly damaged during Nazi occupation in WW2 but has been wonderfully restored.
After lunch we checked out the village of Pushkin and Alexander Palace and then to Catherine's Palace.
To finish off the day we did a quick ride on the metro which is said to be the world's deepest and also contains lots of art works.
On Thursday we started the day with a tour of the famous Hermitage Museum which is also called the Winter Palace with original construction started by Peter 1 and his wife Catherine. It later became an art collection by another Catherine (the great) and this private collection has expanded to one of the world's biggest art exhibits in a building with 1000s of windows, stairs and stuff.
Next we were off to the Peter and Paul Fortress where all the Russian czars and czarinas are buried. This includes a small coffin with the remains of Russia's last czar (Nicholas 2), his family and servants-all murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918s.
At the end of the day we toured the Yosupuv(?) Palace which was the home of a very wealthy family who did not approve of the friendship between the Russian royal family and the spiritual dude, Rasputin. Felix Yosupuv helped murder poor old Rasputin in early 1900s. After the revolution the Yospuv family fled from the communists and went to live in Paris where they had to make do with their French palace.
As the Emerald Princess departed St Petersburg we passed through a formerly secret Soviet naval base and then through the flood gates that protect St. Pete from rising Baltic waters. Vladmir Putin, the current Russian president, is from St Petersburg and he somehow managed to find money in the Russian economy to complete construction of the gates after many years of delays.
31 MAY FRIDAY HELSINKI, FINLAND
We started this brief city tour with the Hop on Hop Off bus rides. We all had to take a quick tour of the "Church of the Rock" which is, literally, a rather modest church carved into the solid rock. While in the church I noticed some free tourist brochures and they were printed in 51 different languages!
We took a quick peek at Sibelius Park named in honor of Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius. I have always loved his composition, "Finlandia". Also an interesting nude statue which was very controversial when first unveiled in early 1900s but now very popular in Helsinki.
At the end of the day we had a cocktail hour in Don and Kathy's suite and then a sit down dinner at the Michelangelo restaurant on the ship.
1 JUNE SATURDAY STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
This, our last port visit, was another short tour day. The city is built upon several of about 20,000 islands and the cruise ships must travel slowly as they navigate the narrow channels among the islands. The views from our balcony were quite lovely and sometimes we were practically looking into the windows of the summer homes.
Our city touring was mostly via Hop on Hop off boats. We first hopped off at the very popular VASA Museum. The VASA was a ship built in 1628 as part of King Gustavus II plan to expand the Swedish naval forces. Unfortunately for the king, the ship sank in Stockhom harbor on its maiden sail in front of thousands of spectators. I guess the king was not pleased. Fortunately, for us the ship was well preserved in the not-so-salty Baltic waters and recovered intact in 1956. It is on display in the very dark museum. The intricate wood works and details are quite remarkable. An amusement park is next door to the museum.
We also hung out at Old Town and then back to our cruise ship after a bit of delay due a marathon race which was just getting started.
2 JUNE SUNDAY AT SEA
This was another all day sail as we headed back to Copenhagen. Copenhagen is on a large island (Zealand) which is connected to the rest of Denmark by bridges and to Sweden via the new Oresund Bridge. Our ship can not go under the Oresund Bridge so we had to go around the island passing under the bridge shown below and then arriving Copenhagen from the north.
3-7 JUNE MONDAY COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
The Emerald Princess arrived in the morning of 3 June and by 10am we had disembarked and JJ an I were headed back to our hotel in Copenhagen. We stayed for 4 days and got lots of sightseeing.
We bought a Copenhagen Card which gave us unlimited use of the public transportation and many museums, etc. Then we were off for train rides to see the Kronborg Castle at the town of Helsingor north of Copenhagen. This castle is also know as Hamlet's Castle since it is believed that Shakespeare set his play in this location. We also took a quick ferry ride across the Oresund to the Swedish side and then came right back.
OK, I saw a unique thing in the men's toilet at the Hamlet Castle which I feel compelled to share with you readers. There was a flushing floor beneath the urinal accounting for the fact that many males can only pee in the general direction of urinals but not into them!
Since there is a lot of daylight at these northern latitudes in summer we had time in the evening to do canal boat tours which were paid for by our cards. We stopped at the famous (but very small) little mermaid statue which is a symbol of Copenhagen and based on H. C. Andreson story.
The next day we took the same train north and stopped at the Louisiana Modern Art Museum. This was about our favorite place because of the beautiful grounds and location! We had a nice Danish buffet lunch there for 272 kroner which is about $50 US!! Nothing is cheap in these Scandinavian countries.
On our last tour day we took another train west to the Town of Roskilde to visit the cathedral. Here is the burial place for all the kings and queens of Denmark. For some reason all the kings are named either Frederick or Christian. The queens have a variety of names. There is an area under construction to prepare for arrival of the current Queen Margrethe but everyone hopes she will not get there for a long, long time.
In Roskilde we found that the Viking Museum did not take our Copenhagen Card so we went to a local history museum. Like every other place we visited this museum was doing some construction but I did get my photo with the shadow of the guy who founded Roskilde or someplace.
Finally, on Friday 7 June we flew back to San Diego arriving 8pm local. This excellent adventure was over!!
THE END
